New Delhi: Language represents culture, community, and regional identity—not faith. With this view, the Supreme Court of India refused to quash a Bombay High Court order allowing the use of Urdu on the signage of a municipal council building in Maharashtra.
While affirming the linguistic rights of India’s diverse communities, the top court said Tuesday that language should be a tool of communication, not a source of division.
In its judgment on a petition challenging usage of Urdu on the official signage of a new municipal council building in Patur in Akola district, the apex court said use of Urdu serves the sole purpose of “effective communication”.
The bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K. Vinod Chandran ruled that displaying an additional language does not amount to a breach of the Maharashtra Local Authorities (Official Languages) Act, 2022. The judges further noted that the act does not impose any restriction on the use of Urdu.
“If people or a group of people, residing within the area covered by the Municipal Council are familiar with Urdu, then there should not be any objection if Urdu is used in addition to the official language i.e. Marathi, at least on the signboard of the Municipal Council. Language is a medium for exchange of ideas that brings people holding diverse views and beliefs closer and it should not become a cause of their division,” read the order.
The top court agreed with the high court’s reasoning that there is no legal prohibition on the usage of Urdu under the 2022 legislation or any other law. The appellant’s case was seen as based on a misconception of law. As a result, the court decided to dismiss the appeals.
The appellant, a former municipal council member, had contended that all official business of the council must be conducted exclusively in Marathi, arguing that the use of Urdu is unacceptable—even for something as minimal as displaying it on official signage.
The appellant’s primary argument before the high court was that, since Marathi is the official language of the state, all official work carried out by the government and its agencies, including local bodies, must be conducted solely in Marathi. On this basis, the appellant claimed that the use of Urdu in any form is inappropriate and should be prohibited.
The top court, however, said that language should not be equated with religion, as it depicts culture, community, and regional identity—not faith.
“Let our concepts be clear. Language is not religion. Language does not even represent religion. Language belongs to a community, to a region, to people; and not to a religion. Language is culture. Language is the yardstick to measure the civilizational march of a community and its people. So is the case of Urdu, which is the finest specimen of ganga-jamuni tahzeeb, or the Hindustani tahzeeb, which is the composite cultural ethos of the plains of northern and central India. But before language became a tool for learning, its earliest and primary purpose will always remain communication,” it said.
The court highlighted the linguistic inclusivity and cultural significance of language, stating that India had “a total of 122 major languages including the 22 scheduled languages, and a total of 234 mother tongues,” according to the 2001 Census, and that Urdu was the sixth most spoken scheduled language in the country.
“In fact, it is spoken by at least a part of the population in all states and Union Territories, except perhaps in our north-eastern states. In the 2011 Census, the number of mother tongues increased to 270. However, it is to be noted that this number was also arrived at by taking into consideration only those mother tongues which had more than 10,000 speakers. Thus, it would not be wrong to say that the actual number of mother tongues in India would run into thousands,” it said.
In essence, the court advocated for respect, inclusion, and practicality in the choice of language for official purposes, especially in a diverse country like India.
“We, the people of India, have taken great pain in resolving the language issue at the Centre, which is our unique achievement considering the linguistic diversity of the nation as we have been mentioning repeatedly,” read the judgment.
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‘Misconception that Urdu is alien to India’
The top court focused on Urdu’s indigenous roots, linguistic lineage, and role as a bridge between diverse communities. “The prejudice against Urdu stems from the misconception that Urdu is alien to India. This opinion, we are afraid, is incorrect as Urdu, like Marathi and Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language. It is a language which was born in this land,” it said.
Urdu, the bench added, flourished in India due to the need for people from different cultural milieus to communicate amongst themselves. “Over the centuries, it attained ever greater refinement and became the language of choice for many acclaimed poets,” it said.
The judgment went on to summarise the history of the language debate in India, from pre-Independence days to the days of the freedom movement when many Indians accepted Hindustani—a blend of Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi—as the common language spoken by a large population.
This recognition was formalised in 1923 at the Indian National Congress’s Cocanada (Kakinada) session, where the Congress agreed to adopt Hindustani for its official use.
“Nehru acknowledged that Hindustani is bound to become the all-India medium of communication, since it is spoken by a large number of people in the country. At the same time, he recognized the importance of provincial languages by emphasizing that the intention was not to replace provincial languages with Hindustani. Thus, he put forward the idea of Hindustani as a compulsory second language,” the court said.
On Urdu’s constitutional importance and recognition, the bench said the language is even used by the Supreme Court and other courts. “Urdu words have a heavy influence on court parlance, both in criminal and civil law. From Adalat to halafnama to peshi, the influence of Urdu is writ large in the language of the Indian courts. For that matter, even though the official language of the Supreme Court and the high courts as per Article 348 of the Constitution is English, yet many Urdu words continue to be used in this court till date. These include vakalatnama, dasti, etc.”
The judgement then delved into the true distinction between languages—being in syntax, grammar, and phonology, where Urdu and Hindi share striking similarities.
“It may also be of the same interest to know that when we criticise Urdu, we are in a way also criticising Hindi, as according to linguists and literary scholars, Urdu and Hindi are not two languages, but it is one language. True, Urdu is mainly written in Nastaliq and Hindi in Devnagri (sic); but then scripts do not make a language. What makes languages distinct is their syntax, their grammar and their phonology. Urdu and Hindi have broad similarities in all these counts,” the court ruled.
Adding, “If there are dissimilarities, there are plenty between Hindi and high Hindi, like there are between Urdu and high Urdu. But close similarities exist between Hindi and Urdu, when these are spoken day-to-day.”
Ruchi Bhattar is an intern with ThePrint
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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